Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I arrived in Lodz (pronounced Woodge). Met up with my friend Matt at the train station and walked over to his girlfriends house. Matt is my friend from Los Angeles, he just finished his degree in directing at the local film school. Matt is working on a documentary. He has about 17 hours of film he needs to shorten to 20 minutes. He is excited to have a big project to work on especially after just graduating. Roman Polanski also went to school here.

Olla had prepared a delicious Polish dinner for us to celebrate Matt turning 26. Along with the delicious food we drank vodka with slices of cucumber and apple juice. Later that night, we went over to a film school party in Downtown Lodz. Since most of the people at the party were from all over the world everyone mostly spoke English.

The next day, we walked around town sightseeing. Matt showed me an area were a bunch of abandoned industrial warehouses were recently bought by David Lynch. Lynch plans to convert the area into a film center and a camera image area. Lynch filmed part of his last film, "Inland Empire," in Lodz. The city is already known as Hollylodz for the famous film school and Pola Negri, a famous silent film actress. The Polish government is trying to make Lodz the center of arts. Recently, they put stars along the streets with the names of their famous actors, directors, and so on. It looks identical to the Hollywood walk.

We walked to his film school and some of his buddies were giving a demonstration on the red one camera. The red one is produces high quality digital film and can be edited on the spot. We watched a group of Spanish speaking guys set up this little black camera.

We ended the weekend by seeing the new Cohen brother movie. I am not sure what the title is called in English. Its been awhile since I've been home.